Black Fox
by moonshadow427
Summary: Morgan Vulpes has kept her family secret her entire life. She is part of a dying breed, hunted to near extinction. She's sure her kind has been forgotten about, or at least those who knew the truth and would dare do anything about it were long gone. Turns out they aren't. And turns out they will jump through as many hoops as they needed to just to get her right where they wanted.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter Fanfic-

Okay. This is me…five years Later, trying to rewrite my story because it has potential but I had just started writing when I first wrote this so _damn_. Let's try this again. (I even wrote in first person…yikes)

Chapter 1-

In the middle of a large station, a young girl stood alone, her eyes wide and excited in all ways as she looked down the tracks, waiting excitedly to catch the first glimpse of the crimson train she knew would be rolling down to meet them soon enough. Next to her stood both a large trunk and a cage that was perched atop it with a beautifully posed Raven, who was looking around at all the other owls, cats, and rats in pure disdain.

Now one would think, that age of only thirteen, this girl would be accompanied by her parents but with no such luck. Her home was shared by hundreds of other children who had either been given up by their birth parents, taken away from them, or have nowhere else to go. This girl fell into the last category. She had nowhere to go but the foster home and now, since she missed the cute younger age, wait until she was old enough to leave on her own. She did, however get a blissful few months away at the illustrious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, just like all the others around her on Platform nine and three quarters.

This girl, predictably enough, was not like those around her. Her blood runs with a type of magic that was very rare and only survived in two lines. This particular type of magic gifted each child with the ability of a second form from their birth. They didn't need to perform any kind of deep, complicated spell to achieve the ability to change forms, nor did they have to be cursed. They were just taught like a bird was taught to fly. However, this magic came with a cost. If removed from the host, it could give the thief great power, because of that, stealing the magic of a genetic shifter was declared forbidden.

Not that it stopped some.

Because of that power, this young thirteen year old girl held the entire weight of her family heritage on her shoulders, being the last of her kind…as far as she knew.

There were many types of genetic shifters, all passed the same animal through their tree. This girl came from the Vulpes tree, and was gifted with the form of a fox. It was common for her family to have the usual bright red hair, perhaps with a few stubborn pieces of hair that seemed to lack pigment and remained white but many in her family used magic to hide those away. There were others of course, who's other form's for was a different pigment, so their hair reflected that. As this your girl's did. Her hair was an interesting shade of black, and the annoying non-pigmented streaks that came with her family's line interlaced it, giving her hair an odd gray tint, making her seem much older than she actually was but…that's what she was born with, so that's what she got. She just told people it was the product of a failed glamour charm, and in no way natural.

Finally, the train pulled up and the girl practically vibrated with delight. She just couldn't _wait_ to go to school! She had heard rumors about something big happening this year and, after all the strange things that happened in the past few years, she wouldn't be surprised.

Just before she was shoving her luggage into the correct compartment, she heard someone trot up behind her to greet her.

"Hey Morgan." The girl turned and smiled at her friend,

"Hi Harry, Ron, Hermione. How're things?" She greeted the trio. One was a girl with wild brown hair, another a tall lanky boy with red hair, and the final, the one who spoke, was a skinny boy with disheveled black hair and bright green eyes. The red head, Ron chuckled,

"Things are good." Morgan laughed at such a dull answer and shook her head.

"We should get going. The train is leaving soon!" Hermione said panicking, and hurrying everyone onto the trail. Morgan only just had the chance to snag the cage of her precious raven.

"We'll be fine, Hermione! Calm down!" Ron whined and turned to wave to his parents as the whistle sounded loudly, signaling it was in fact time to hurry it up.

They walked through the train, peeking into compartments until they found an empty one and immediately claimed it. After they settled in the three of them started to tell Morgan, in explicit detail, what happened at the Quidditch World Cup. It was absolutely fascinating and by the end Morgan was sitting there with a small pout on her lips.

"I wish I could've gone." She sighed.

"Well if you would tell us where to send your letters, maybe we would've been able to!" Ron argued.

"It's an owl, they know how to find people without needing an address." Morgan shot back, still pouting pathetically.

"It would still be nice to have one. When are you going to tell us?" Hermione pleaded with a small concerned frown but Morgan waved them off.

"Guess I still need my summers away for you people. I mean, I need to keep up some kind of an image. I can't spend all year _and_ all summer with a bunch of Gryffindors!" Morgan said, side stepping the topic quickly with an openly teasing laugh.

"Oh please, you don't have an image anymore." Harry snorted.

"Then I guess I need to work a bit harder on it." Morgan replied without skipping a beat. "So how was the other part of your summers?" she asked, eyes scanning the group, hoping they would accept the change of subject.

"Not much happened with me, Fred and George found some new tricks so they spent all their time testing those out…on me, specifically." Ron sighed dejectedly.

"Well I had a summer filled with torment thanks to Dudley." Harry said with a shrug. I frowned,

"That's no way to spend summer…they should keep Hogwarts open for like summer school or something. I'd go all year round, no problem!" Morgan said, excited at the concept.

"Totally, that would be perfect!" Harry agreed with a large smile as well.

"Then the teachers would have to be there all year too…I'm glad for the break from Snape." Ron shuddered. Morgan rolled her eyes, Snape could be hard to deal with and he did enjoy tormenting children but he wasn't the end all of teachers.

"And we wouldn't get to go on trips! Like for example _I_ went to America over the break!" Hermione chirped, which drew everyone's attention to her, drilling her with questions about it, seeing as she was the only one out of the group to have ever gone.

The train ride passed quickly enough, full of jokes and stories. Hermione and Morgan gossiped about different things they had heard in the muggle world and what was the new bestselling book. They argued on how it ended since Morgan loved it and Hermione thought it was just atrocious.

Finally the train got close enough that it was time to get ready and change into their robes. The boys both left, laughing loudly about something Harry had done with his cousin, Dursely, while the girls locked the door and closed the blinds to change. Their uniforms were perfectly identical, up to the tie and the robes. Hermione dragged a deep scarlet robe and a matching tie, which was striped in gold, out of her bag to change into. Morgan took her deep emerald robes out with the glistening silver striped tie of the same color and adorned them on.

In most circles the houses Slytherin and Gryffindor did not get along, they were seen as opposites. But Morgan had proved herself to be more than the stereotype, and they accepted her into their circle with open arms.

Morgan left nothing on from her muggle clothes, wanting nothing to do with them, save for the beautifully carved golden ring that rested on her right ring finger. It was a heavy crest ring that had been charmed to grow with her all through her life depicting a fox sitting royally in a surrounding of trees. The Vulpes Family crest, given to her on her very first birthday.

Once the girls were done changing they unlocked the door and let the curtains back up to allow their friends back in. They returned and Morgan got the usual overdramatic cringe she always got from Ron.

"Oh right, you're one of _them_."

"That's me. Slytherin spy." Morgan joked with a wink. "You lot really aren't all that interesting, even though the chosen one is amongst you." They all laughed and conversation turned back to school, specifically…homework.

"I finished mine the first week." Hermione said proudly. Morgan nodded,

"I spaced it out so I would have something to do all summer but…yeah. I finished mine pretty quickly."

Harry and Ron looked between each other in terror. Morgan sighed; she knew that look perfectly well. That's the 'oh shit I forgot' look,

"What didn't you do?" Ron opened his bag and lifted out a half finished report that we were supposed to do for charms that was in bad shape, it had a corner chewed off by some owl and had something spilled on it.

"What spell did you do yours on? I did the Patronus spell." They were supposed to take a single spell and explain in extreme detail how to use it and what it does. Hers took up two sheets of parchment,

"I uh… did Nox." Ron said hesitantly. The two girls nodded,

"Okay… so what's the problem?" he gave his friend a look and gestured at the parchment,

"It's destroyed!" he whined. Hermione just sighed heavily and drew her wand free, pointing it at the paper.

" _Tergo_." she said with a twitch of her wand. The dirt fell from it and the parchment repaired itself, looking brand new once again.

"There, now quickly finish writing it." He took out a quill and started writing away, with Hermione looking over his shoulder and correcting him. Morgan turned her attention to Harry curiously,

"And you?" his face was pale,

"Well I just didn't check over my essay for Snape." Morgan gave him a sympathetic look. For some reason, Snape absolutely despised Harry. So it was fair that he would want it to be perfect. He took out a carefully rolled up parchment and gave it to her. She scanned it over, fixed any minor things and gave it back, sure Snape would have to actively search for any slight mistakes to give him a bad grade.

"Looks fine to me." the color returned to his face and he re rolled it back up, letting out a deep sigh of relief.

"Thanks." He said sincerely.

"No Problem. Now… is anyone else confused why we had to buy dress robes?" She asked with a tinge of annoyance. She had a dress, sure, but it was such an odd request, she had to really go out of her way to find something to buy.

Ron shuddered and glanced at the dress robe he had thrown over his owl's cage. They were dreadful things, looked like they were pulled straight out of a coffin, and in about just as good shape.

"I am not wearing that." Hermione shrugged,

"I was able to find something… but I'm not telling." She added as she caught my curious glance. Morgan pouted and Harry seemed to avoid the question, not wanting to get involved, seemingly fascinated by an odd piece of lace on Ron's robes that almost seemed to be moving on their own. Morgan was about to say something when the door opened and everyone froze at once.

Great, this guy.

"Malfoy." Morgan greeted in a sigh, getting a sneer in return,

"Still hanging around with the Gryffindors are you Vulpes?" he scoffed, turning his nose up.

Morgan made no comment. While she loved her house…she did not like those who fit into the stigma of 'evil Slytherin', as Malfoy so blatantly did. Ron had been taking the opportunity to shove his dress robes back in his bag but Pigwidgeon had decided it tasted good and stole one of the sleeves to it.

"What… is that Weasley?" He pointed to the robes and made a grab for it, unfortunately managing to get it.

"Look at this!" he yelled, his voice a few pitches higher out of absolute joy at the concept of ruining someone's day. Morgan let out a low growl at him before he could say another word, he didn't have to be so rude. There was no reason for it.

"There's no reason for this to turn south, _Malfoy._ Why not just drop the robes and be on your way?" she ordered. There must have been something about either the way she spoke, or the way she looked that made Malfoy a bit uneasy since he decided it wasn't worth it and tossed the robes away.

"They were hideous anyway, now tell me, are you thinking about entering?" Everyone glared at him, totally confused, both by his question and the fact he was attempting conversation.

"What are you talking about?" Ron snapped, shoving the robes in his bag.

Of course, in typical Malfoy fashion, he loved rubbing it in if he knew something no one else did. So he didn't get to the point until Morgan got tired of him talking and pointedly directed him towards the end of his rant.

"Look, we get it, you know something we don't. Are you going to _tell us_ or just leave?" She grumbled, malice dripping from her voice. So of course, he laughed and walked away, followed by Crabbe and Goyle and without telling them anything.

"He is the reason Slytherin gets a bad name." she said dejectedly.

"Don't worry we don't think you're anything like him." Ron said, patting her back like it was the biggest compliment anyone could receive.

"Thanks." She drawled, shaking her head. "Well we must be near by now." Morgan declared and started organizing her bag, trying to shove the questions out of her head that swirled around.

Once the train slowed to a stop everyone began bustling to get off, wanting to be the first out and back to school. Once they got off the train they were greeted by their grounds keeper, Hagrid. Who happened to be a personal friend of the Golden Trio, and Morgan.

"See yeh at the feast if we don' drown!' he bellowed, gesturing to the rough water the poor little first years were going to have to go across. Great way to start the year.

"Poor small children." she muttered and turned to look for her friends but they had gotten separated in the crowd, so they were nowhere to be seen.

Morgan frowned and looked around for a carriage that wasn't fully occupied. She noticed one and ran towards it, wrapping her robes tighter around herself and jumped in only to immediately regret it but had to sit down with Malfoy and his small posse. She pushed herself as far up against the wall as she could and stared out the window, trying to ignore the possibility of any conversation, even though the uncomfortable silence made her skin crawl.

As soon as the carriage stopped she jumped out and sprinted into the building, trying to avoid getting herself wet. Once she got in she stopped quickly and sidestepped quickly. She had been here long enough to know that running headfirst into the opening hall wasn't always the best idea. It was usually best to keep an eye out, especially for their in house trickster ghost, Peeves. She was lucky she did since he was pelting the already soaked students with water balloons and cackling nonstop. Morgan sighed and skirted to the side, sticking to the walls and trying to sneak around him and into the dining hall.

She noticed her friends over at their house table and gave a wave before going to her own house table and taking a seat by one of her friends, Amanda.

"Hey Morgan! How was your summer?" Amanda, a plain looking girl with a striking smile and bright eyes, asked with only a hint of her full watt smile.

"Oh it was pretty boring. Just studied all summer and read." Morgan replied with little care. "What about you?"

Amanda perked up at the opportunity to talk about herself and launched into a full tale of every little thing that happened while they waited for the first years to come in. When they finally did everyone was groaning and mumbling about how hungry they were. The weather had definitely made them _much_ later than usual and everyone was hungry. Still, they waited for the sorting to finish, listening to the sorting hat sing its song and watching the lines of kids go up and get separated into their four houses. Morgan dutifully clapped along with everyone else and waited to see who would join Slytherin with her.

When it finally finished there was practically a deafening roar of happiness as the food appeared on the table and everyone dug in. Soon the entire hall was filled with happy chatter and laughter. Finally the plates were cleared away, leaving only cups and half-finished desserts with Dumbledore stood up for the announcements.

He started off by introducing the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher: Professor Moody. He was the fourth one in all the four years Morgan had been in school. And while some of them were nice, this one instantly creeped her out. He had that crazy eye that earned him the name of Mad-Eye Moody and he was drinking a suspicious liquid no one really thought was something that should be drunk in school.

"What an ugly git. I heard he's classified as mentally insane." A voice to Morgan's left whispered which in turn brought a small smell of agreement from all those around. That man was not right in the mind. His crazy eye zipped around, landing everywhere and seeing everything.

"This year Hogwarts has gotten the opportunity to host the Tri-wizard tournaments." Dumbledor announced when the whispering stopped, only for the murmurs swelled right back up in excitement, "BUT… only students in year six and up are allowed to enter." The murmurs turned into outrage,

"BUT THAT'S NOT FAIR!" Fred and George yelled and Malfoy was talking rather loudly about all the debts they could've paid off with the 1000 galleon prize, earning him a large amount of glares from all the Weaslys who heard him, which was definitely his attempt. Dumbledore let everyone yell and fight with a small smile until they realized he wasn't going to change his mind and quieted down.

"The delegates from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!"

Everyone got up and forced their way out of the hall. Morgan was tempted to go find the Golden Trio but decided it was too late and she just wanted to go back to her common room, trailing behind some of the others and of course listening to some of the people in her own year bullying the new kids and scaring them.

"There is a man eating scorpion in the girl's bathroom on the fifth floor." Pansy Parkinson said, a bratty, snotty girl who seemed to think she was the most popular and amazing girl in the school…so basically she was annoying.

"Don't be ridiculous, they got rid of that last year, but I did hear there was a sea snake that found it's way into the plumbing under the sixth stall." Morgan piped up. She may try to be nice but…she could never pass up a chance for a little prank, especially one that annoyed Parkinson.

We finally got down to the dungeon and got to a dead end. The first years were confused,

"T-There's nothing here." A small brown haired girl pointed out but shied back at the looks she received.

"Basilisk Fang." Our perfect said and the wall disappeared, revealing a long corridor that seemed to lead into the very abyss itself with only the faintest of lights that would lead you down the stairs. The small girl, as well as some of the other first years stared down in awe. Morgan stepped up to the first girl and gave her a shrug.

"Welcome Home." she said, then walked away, excited to go back to her room.

They walked down the stairs leading to the common room. Amused by how the young kids were holding close to the walls since they weren't used to how dark it was. Before they finally made it.

Their common room was a large, open room with large windows that looked out into the black lake. The room was filled with sitting tables, the walls covered in bookshelves filled with everything from normal text books to family trees to books they probably shouldn't actually be allowed to have. The entire room seemed a bit gloomy, since all the lights were dim green flames but it was more than enough to get your work done, though it always made you a bit sleepy. There was a lowered section down near the far side of the room that had some of the larger couches and chairs that surrounded a grated fire pit while doors led off in wild directions. Some of them led in giant circles that only took you back to the common room while others went to the bathrooms or the dorms. Each gender had their own specific pattern to follow to find their dorms to keep anyone from peeping into the opposite gender's rooms, though a spell prevented anyone from entering anyway. For that reason…first years were usually forced to stand and wait around for someone who knew how to get in or out. Second years might have to as well in the beginning but by the time you're in third year you know those patterns inside and out.

Since it was the first day of the year, Morgan decided she needed to check out her territory once again, make sure nothing had changed and just brush up on any possible intruders that could be around. Or just basic ratting for the fun of it. So she wandered through the halls to get to the dorm and feigned sleep for the longest time to make sure she could get out without being spotted.

After three hours she was actually getting twitchy and she couldn't handle the waiting anymore. She assumed everyone was asleep by now so she pulled back her curtain slightly, checking that every girl was in her bed and smiled. She hopped off her bed silently and took a deep breath, focusing on her magic. If someone blinked they would've missed almost the entire process. One second there was a girl, the next a small black fox with dark blue eyes. The fox stretched in delight and trotted out the door and through the halls. She turned the corner to go towards the stairs leading outside when she came face-to-face with none other than Draco Malfoy.

Oops.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry Potter FF-

Fun fact. In the original version of this chapter I actually wrote the words 'enjoy this chappie'. I typed those words…and posted them. Poor innocent 2012 author…

Chapter 2-

The teens stared at each other, frozen in shock until Draco's brain finally made sense of what was happening and made quite the face. It was something crossed between disgust, confusion, and horror.

"A Fox? How the hell did that get down here? Dirty little creature." He sneered and wiped his wand out. Morgan yelped and turned on her heel, nails clawing desperately to gain traction on the smooth marble floors and sprinted out the door, ignoring the loud yell from behind her and the spell that hit just inches behind her. She was in absolute panic, sprinting through the halls and looking around desperately for a hiding spot with Malfoy a bit too close on her heels. She finally just dove behind a suit of armor and cowered there, chest heaving out of fear, eyes wide and tail fluffed to the max.

Malfoy stalked down the hall, searching around slowly but right before he turned to look at her hiding spot, a voice they both knew very well called out to them.

"Mr. Malfoy! What are you doing out of the dormitory so late?" Professor Snape, their potions teacher and head of the Slytherin House.

"Sorry sir, but there was this _fox_ in the common room." Malfoy argued.

"A fox?" Snape repeated slowly, as if that were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

"Yes! A Fox. How could it even get in there?" he huffed.

"There are many secrets in Hogwarts. Now return to bed." Snape ordered.

"But _Sir_ —"

"Your room, Malfoy. Return to it…at once." The teacher repeated coldly…and with little patience. Malfoy huffed, grumbling under his breath and trudged back towards the common room, allowing Morgan to finally breathe.

"You need to be more careful." Snape stated, seemingly to the open hallway but Morgan knew he was talking to her. Morgan inched out of her hiding place, keeping her head down pathetically. She usually much better at keeping herself hidden and without getting spotted so to get caught…but _Malfoy_ of all people was pathetic. Snape gave her a disappointed look and turned away, letting her continue. Morgan waited until he was gone and slunk out towards the door. She had been informed in her first year of a way outside so she went to that little exit and trotted outside, breathing in the fresh and running through the fields, swatting at fireflies and annoyed pixies.

She always felt so free in this form so she always acted like it, like she really had no issues. She made it to the forest and stopped, sniffing the air and then trotting in. She ran around for a while, hunted small rodents and avoided anything dangerous. It had taken a bit of time to be accepted into the forest by some of the creatures. She knew what parts of the forest to avoid, especially that part with the nasty giant spiders. She had made that mistake first year and she learned quickly. She knew the best place to play without being hurt.

She didn't really want to deal with questions if she limped into castle bleeding from a hippogriff attack or trampled by a centaur. That would be way too much work to explain. Finally Morgan noticed the forest was starting to lighten up so she hurried back to the school and try and grab at least an hour of sleep before her first day of classes.

Since there was always a chance there were some kids who had pulled an all-nighter to finish the work they did do she decided to actually return to her human form and walked through the halls, half dead from exhaustion, regretting staying out so late. Still, she walked back to her common room, choking back a yawn and mumbling the password to get in and plodded her way downstairs. She had four hours before class. Snag two of those to sleep and she could at least pay attention to a third of her classes.

"Watch where you're going!" Morgan looked up, slightly surprised to be told to watch it seeing she had definitely not run into someone but realized she was a step away from doing so and the other person, who was actually awake and had conscious thought, was able to avoid her.

"Morning." She greeted her housemate with little care, shuffling to the side and continued down to bed, leaving a confused and slightly alarmed male in her path.

Morgan didn't even bother to change, just face planted onto her bed and was out cold in seconds, thankful for that _precious_ amount of—

"Morgan, wake up!" someone yelled seemingly seconds later.

"I'm up, I'm up!" the poor girl mumbled, burying her face deeper into the pillow and making a grand total of no moves to back up her claim of getting up.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure." Amanda scoffed and grabbed her friend's pillow and yanked it free, successfully making Morgan's head bounce off the mattress and possibly kill off a few brain cells.

"OW!" Morgan wailed, sitting up to glare at her friend.

"Much better. Here, I brought you some toast, bacon and a pie. Get dressed, we have class in fifteen minutes." Amanda listed off, shoving a napkin on her lap. Morgan looked down and blinked slowly.

"You've had to do this way too much, haven't you?" she mumbled.

"Yes. Stop staying up so late, hurry up." The girl replied and went to organize both her bag and Morgan's while she dragged herself out of bed and finished getting dressed, shoving the food in her mouth and brushing her teeth as quickly as she could.

"Am I good?" Morgan asked quickly, spreading her arms for an inspection. Amanda looked her over quickly and reached down to tug the corner of her robe out of her shoe and nodded.

"Perfect. Let's go." The pair grabbed their bags and sprinted out of the dorms, hurrying to their first class of the day, only slowing down under the glare of a teacher or a prefect.

When they decided they could slow to a walk and not be late they did so, giggling quietly and still keeping up a bit of a speed walk.

"Oh! Did you hear what happened last night?" Amanda gasped suddenly.

"Something already happened? We haven't even been through one day!" Morgan whined.

"I know but like…apparently Malfoy found a _fox_ in our common room and a rabid one at that!" she said in a low conspirator's voice. Morgan blinked a few times but wasn't exactly surprised. Of course Malfoy would play up such a simple act to make himself seem heroic.

"Yeah right. How could a fox get into our common room. We need a password, remember?"

"Well…yeah…but…it's Hogwarts! Weird things happen!" she argued, defending him. Morgan just sighed and decided not to say any more on the subject and just let it die. Even if her ego was a bit hurt by the thought of being called _rabid_.

The first class of the day for the Slytherin forth years was charms, along with the Ravenclaws. Morgan and Amanda continued on, keeping up a more basic talk about a particularly tricky question on their transfiguration work neither of them were quite sure on and wanted to make sure they weren't just oblivious and stupid. Thankfully they found out that if they were, they were in it together. They passed Malfoy and his gang tormented all the younger kids just because that's how he gets his kicks. Morgan gave a soft sigh of disdain and began to file into charms class only to be met by not only slamming face first into the person in front of her, but Amanda slamming face first into her back.

"Wait!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, "We have a seating chart!" he announced and proceeded to wave his wand and remove the wall he decided to erect in the doorway to keep his students from sitting wherever they wanted. Everyone grumbled and groaned, both for their slight injuries and the fact that hey, seating chart, no fun.

"Okay here we go!"

He started listing off names, and putting them in pairs. Amanda got put next to some random Ravenclaw boy and had to wave good-bye to her friend sullenly. Morgan glanced around and did a head count, finding that there were two more Slytherin than Ravenclaw so two Slytherin would have to pair up. She didn't really think much of it other than it was a trivial fact until there were only two Ravenclaw left and four Slytherin, two of them being Malfoy and herself. She really didn't want to work with him. Not only was he annoying but he would rather sit back and chat with his posse than actually do any work.

"Okay and in the back corner is Morgan Vulpes and Draco Malfoy."

Predictable. Extremely and disgustingly predictable.

Morgan let her shoulders hunch in annoyance and walked over to her chair anyway with Malfoy just a bit behind her, still laughing with people who he had now left on the other side of the room. She grabbed her seat and dragged it a bit farther away from his own, setting her bag down and glancing inside it to look for her parchment. Only to discover, like so many times before…this wasn't her bag. She let out a sigh and looked around the room to find Amanda but she was just looking right back with a dull expression. They both knew, they both found out, they needed to get bags that looked a bit different from each other's. Thankfully their items were also interchangeable except for a few personal books or favorite quills but…that was it.

Once the finished setting the seats up and everyone got settled he wrote two simple words on the board: Illusion charms. Morgan couldn't help a small cringe; shape shifting was placed under illusion charms. So she gets caught on her first day in the castle, then her very first class of the year is going to out her existence to half of her grade. Excellent.

"Okay now there are four main forms of illusion charms." He said in his grating, high-pitched voice, "Cloaking, Manipulation, mirror or duplication, and shape-shifting." He seemed to make a conscious effort to keep from looking at Morgan.

"Cloaking is changing the appearance of it but not the touch or feel and is usually applied to an object, thus creating something like an invisibility cloak. Manipulation charms will usually alter one's train of thoughts, such as the charms surrounding the school so if someone came looking for the castle, they would see nothing, or suddenly have the desire to go elsewhere. Mirror, or duplication, is creating copies of one thing and making it appear either in another location, or look slightly different. Finally, shape-shifting is where something actually changes from one form to another. Who can tell me an example of shape shifting?" the random Ravenclaw kid next to Amanda raised his hand,

"Animagus." Flitwick nodded, "Which is a person who can transform into an animal."

"Yes, yes! What else?" everyone else started naming off things but, judging by the way he kept sneaking Morgan subtle glances, he was hoping she would speak up but she had no interest in linking herself to such a thing in anyway. Finally the guesses ran dry with no one able to come up with the final example and Morgan remaining stubbornly silent, Flitwick was forced to answer his own question.

"The final type of transformation is the rarest of them all, called genetic transformations." He stated and his words were met with absolute silence. No one had heard of such a term. "This form of shape-shifting, as the name suggests is passed down through a family line. Each of the families that possesses this gene shares the same second form, though they change slightly in appearance. Through the years all of the lines have been narrowed down so only two survived. That which holds the form of a fox," Morgan noticed Malfoy sat up a bit in his seat at that, actually looking interested, as well as confused, "and another with the second form of a cougar. While there are very few remaining with gift, the very few who have the ability are under protection by the ministry."

Well, that's news to Morgan.

"Guess they can't be that tough then, if they need protection." Malfoy scoffed, unable to keep his comments to himself.

"Says the boy who uses his father as a threat at even the slightest inconvenience." Morgan grumbled, leaning most of her weight on her hand, still paying attention to the teacher and ignoring the furious glare she was receiving but she also put him in a hole since he couldn't use his usual 'my father will hear about this' threat.

"How many are left, professor?" a kid asked.

"There are two remaining, one from each family." Flitwick answered patiently, letting the whispers swell before simmering back down.

"Would we know one if we saw one? Like do they have glowing eyes or sharp teeth?" Flitwick just laughed, while Morgan rolled her eyes. Sure, and they have fluffy tails and ears growing out the tops of their head too.

"No. They resemble an animagus in every way, except they are born with the ability. There are rumors that they may share slight more similarities with their animal half but, seeing as they are such reclusive families, that is not for sure."

It was almost amusing to watch Flitwick dance around such simple answers to try and protect Morgan's secret. It was known that the her family had oddly colored hair, and it was known the other family, the Kougar family, did in fact have feline eyes but with Morgan and her weird hair…better to say nothing. It wasn't like she could be tied to a name or anything. The genetic code was only passed through females, so the original family name has been long lost. The other family, the Kougar, was tied to a male gene so they did have to worry about that.

"Now, now, enough about the shifters! Let's learn a spell, shall we? This will be a mirror spell. You should all have an object on your desk, a trinket of some sort. Your job is to make a copy of that object and place it at least two inches away. This spell will create a nontangible replica. The enchantment for such a charm is _speculum_. Now repeat after me, no wands please! _Speculum!_ " The whole class droned after him a few times before they were instructed to pick up their wands and learn the correct motions.

Once everyone got that down they were set loose of their items.

Morgan turned to face hers, it was just a classic piece of junk: a chipped tea cup. She looked it over closely, making sure she knew exactly what it looked like and swirled her wand in the air and pointed to where she wanted it to go. She got an odd shimmering image for a split second that faded immediately afterwards. She sighed in disdain and tried again but with the same result.

Beside her, of course, there was a small snort of amusement and she made the mistake of looking over to Malfoy with a scowl.

"You can do it?" she asked, unimpressed.

"Sure. It's not hard." He scoffed. Morgan leaned back in her chair and waved her hands invitingly.

"Then please, show me how's its done." she grumbled.

To her immense horror, he did actually manage to create a copy of the creepy little doll he had sitting in front of him and let the second sit there until he cancelled the spell with a gloating smile. Morgan glared at him and turned back to her cup, attempting a few more times until she was able to make a mirror image of it, not that Malfoy noticed. He was much too interested in a text book he had taken out.

Finally class was dismissed and Morgan practically sprinted over to her safe haven, sticking to Amanda's side.

"Had a fun time with Malfoy, I assume?" she greeted with a teasing smile.

"He was better than me at the spell…I'm never going to live it down." Morgan whined.

"Yeah…you're stuck with that one." She agreed and reached out for her bag, switching them back to their appropriate owners. "We need to get different bags."

"Agreed." Morgan sighed and turned to head towards their next class of the day, which just so happened to be Care for Magical Creatures, a class Morgan _adored_.

They made the long trek down to Hagrid's and saw all the Gryffindors they would be sharing a class with looking timidly into some large crates that, upon closer inspection, held nasty lobster… worm… things.

Everyone quickly backed off to give those their own personal meter of space each.

Hagrid seemed absolutely thrilled to be teaching the class about these delightful blast-ended skrewts since Hagrid loved all animals, no matter how disgusting or horrifying they appeared aesthetically, Hagrid loved them all. It was a very sweet trait he had, he was so kind and caring.

"And why would we want to raise them?"

Unlike others in the school.

Malfoy was keeping quite the distance from the skrewts, going so far as to hold his nose against the smell of them and eyeing them like they were yet another creature going to attack him. But poor Hagrid, who thought everyone would love learning about another new creature, looked totally confused by his question.

"I mean, what do they do? What's the point of them?" Malfoy pressed.

Apparently that was tomorrow's lesson.


End file.
